In Your Garage

Feature Article from Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car

February, 2012

Shoebox Racing Rides Again
Reader Stan Denoo and his wife raced their 1964 Austin Mini Cooper in the SCCA's C Sedan and GT5 classes back in the late 1980s; when he retired in 2008 and wanted a project to keep himself busy, he "decided to put the Shoebox Racing Mini back on the street just like it was in the day."

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"Several modifications were needed to make it street-legal and driveable for grandma and grandpa," Stan, of Fairplay, Colorado, writes. "The first thing to go was the upper door bar of the roll cage. We are way too old to be crawling through the window, NASCAR-style. Then it needed a passenger seat, then windows, then a heater, and, since hybrids are all the rage these days, it needed to be a hybrid." He replaced the 1,293cc race engine with a 1,600cc Honda VTEC four that makes 180hp. "Power went way up, economy went up, and vibration and noise both went way down. Weight on the front end stayed about the same."
Mechanical parts came from www.Superfastminis.com, and Stan did the rest of the work in his shop, even the bodywork and paint. "The stripes were from the original 30-year-old cans that were used to paint/repaint the car during its racing days," he writes. Stan is especially proud of the "Shoebox Racing" cross-stitching on the shoulder belts. All in all, a fantastic job, Stan.
Second-Owner 914-6
Lucky Tim Huestis--he's just the second owner of this beautiful 1971 Porsche 914-6. The first owner "bought the car new from Langan Porsche Audi in Schenectady, New York, on January 7, 1972. He sold it because he and his wife were moving into a retirement home and would be without a garage," Tim, a reader from Brentwood, Tennessee, writes. "With the car he included the original owner's manual, window sticker, purchase contract and tool kit."
Tim notes that the 914-6, unlike the four-cylinder 914, was assembled at the Porsche factory, with a 911 flat-six as well as Porsche suspension, brakes and steering. The six-cylinder cars are far more rare than the fours, thanks to a much higher price tag; according to Tim, only 435 were built for 1971, 165 of which were shipped to the U.S.
The car is numbers-matching, and was repainted once in its original Signal Orange, though it's never been involved in an accident. The interior is all original. "When I took possession of the car in June, it was in the condition as you see it. It just needed a good cleaning and waxing. It now resides in my garage under a car cover when not in use," Tim writes. "This car is an absolute blast to drive. I have owned a number of different Porsches, but I think this one is a keeper."

This article originally appeared in the February, 2012 issue of Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car.